A Blog of Thoughtful and Uncertain Christianity to bridge the gap between the official and the pragmatic in religion, the arts, society and culture.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

And We Talked about Lipstick....

In the last week we have heard that unemployment hit 6% which is an 8 year high.We also heard that the Wall Street firm of Lehman Brothers lost 3.9 billion dollars last quarter. OPEC is lowering production which will undoubtedly drive the price of oil up due to the onset of heating season in the Northern Hemisphere. Health care is at a crisis with 50 million Americans flying without a net health care wise.Our educational systems are performing at rates lower than most other industrialized countries with whom we are engaged in global competition. Today we also remember the tragedy of the attack on the World Trade Center seven years ago ushering in a two front war in which we are still engaged and in which our young people in the military and civilians in the theater of operations are still dying daily.

Enter all of this the Presidential Election process.Yesterday the media swarmed onto a comment made by Barak Obama about the McCain/Palin ticket that besides their Energy Policy, Foreign Policy, Educational Policy, Economic Policy and Carl Rove politics they were “change” agents.“Its like putting lipstick on a pig.It’s still a pig.”The McCain campaign immediately accused the Obama campaign with sexism and calling the Republican Vice Presidential candidate a pig.The stretch was predicated upon a comment made by Sarah Palin in her acceptance speech about hockey Moms as “Pit Bulls with lipstick”.

Really?Enough!The press went into a feeding frenzy yesterday morning like “cats after catnip”.Asking every surrogate (on both sides) what they thought about this accusation and almost implying legitimacy to this tool of distraction from issues which will affect us and our children for years to come.Like drunken sailors they imbibed the Carl Rove-esque liquor with abandon on the morning political shows like “Morning Joe”.By yesterday evening they had gotten a grip and reported that this was certainly a trumped-up accusations and “fake outrage” designed to make their Vice Presidential candidate elicit sympathy from naive voters.

Its was crass, it was calculated and it is typical of a ticket that has opted for the cult of War Hero/Hockey Mom personality than offering any solutions to the massive problems created and sustained by the last eight years of Republican Administration.Especially when you consider that Torie Clarke,one of the Bush/McCain/Rumsfeld press advisers, wrote a book by the same title as a way to “cut through spin”.

We have tough problems ahead of us with complicated and difficult solutions.Madeline Albright said on a talk show last year that she felt sorry for whoever won the election as they had a major challenge on every front.This being true why are we talking about lipstick?

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About Me

I am an Episcopal priest ordained in 1984 to priesthood and have been in many different parishes and diocesan ministries. I currently am Rector of St. Andrew's Church in Allentown, PA (but I live in nearby Bethlehem!)
I have come to understand my "manner of life" to be an offense to some in the Anglican Communion, but I think my friends and parishioners would agree I am rarely offensive--and not without reason at those times.
I have two great kids--Olivia,22, who serves on the staff of the Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk, VA. My son, Zach, is an energetic and athletic 16 year old in Middle School and plays lacrosse, basketball and soccer and is an avid video game player.
I live in a 100 year old house in (south) Bethlehem,PA. I share my house with my partner David and a three year-old Miniature Schnauzer named Martini.